A REVEALING BRITISH MATH TEST

A leading university has scrapped a maths test that it set new undergraduates for more than 15 years because scores fell so low that it became meaningless. First-year electronics students at York University have taken the 50-question multiple-choice exam since the 1980s to assess their ability.

But the results have proved illuminating in other ways. Over the years performance in the maths test has fallen as the number with top A-level grades has soared. Analysis of the results found that between 1991 and 1998 the average score in the York University maths test of a student with an A grade fell from 70 to 60 per cent, while B-grade students' scores slipped from 62 to 40 per cent.

In the past few years average marks have plummeted so far - to an all time low of 21 out of 50 - that Prof Ken Todd, the head of electronics, abandoned the test. "The scores were so bad we had to discontinue it," he said. "They were not really telling us anything, except that today's students could not do what first-years could do 20 years ago - particularly in algebra and the manipulation of powers and logarithms."

His findings mirror general concerns about the maths curriculum and teaching in secondary schools. David Cameron, the shadow education secretary, said: "This illustrates yet another example of how the Government has failed to get it right." Ministers acknowledged a problem in 2002 and ordered an inquiry, led by Prof Adrian Smith, the principal of Queen Mary College, in London. In his report, published last year, Prof Smith said there was a "crisis-level" shortfall of 3,400 maths teachers in secondary schools. The highest maths qualification of more than a third of those teaching the subject was A-level. Perhaps as a consequence, maths has gone from the largest A-level subject entry to third place, with 49,000 now taking it compared with 80,000 in 1989.

Prof Smith also identified worrying problems within the curriculum, saying: "Employers and higher education say that people come to university with a grade A at A-level and can't do the basic maths that you expect them to do at the beginning of the course." He condemned the government's reforms, which split A-levels into AS-levels and A2s, as a "complete disaster for mathematics". Pupils dropped maths, perceived as a hard subject, for courses in which it was easier to gain good grades. Some of those who stuck with the subject avoided tougher maths units, which meant that students started university with different levels of expertise.

Prof Todd, who has introduced a computerised test based on the A-level curriculum, said: "We need 3,000 specialist maths teachers in schools but I don't know how that is going to happen when university departments struggle to fill places."


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MUSLIM PROBLEMS IN AUSTRALIA TOO

Or more precisely, gutless authorities letting the problems get out of hand. Post lifted from Mark Richardson

Ten years ago Moreland City College in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg had an enrolment of over 1000 students. Last year numbers had fallen to 270 and the school was closed.

Why? It seems that multiculturalism didn't work in this Coburg school. A group of highly disruptive students gave the school a bad reputation from which it never recovered. And there is now evidence that these disruptive students were Lebanese Muslims who hated Australia and wanted to replace it with an Islamic state.

A former teacher, Chris Doig, tried to raise the alarm when some of his students danced with joy after the September 11 attacks. His concerns were ignored by authorities. Mr Doig said of these Lebanese students that "Some of the disruptive ones would say that Australia was degenerate and our legal system would be replaced by Shariah law in the not too distant future."

He also said of the disgruntled students that "Some of these were so disruptive and even violent that staff and other students abandoned the school when they could."

Nor is Mr Doig a lone voice. Two other teachers have supported his claims. One of these says that the disruptive students used to boast that Australia would become a majority Islamic country in 50 years. "They would do this by converting the infidel and by out-breeding the rest of the community."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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